


An Elevator Shared by Two

by scullyphile



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Elevators, F/M, little moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 17:43:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5342804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyphile/pseuds/scullyphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scenes in elevators throughout the series, as relates to MSR.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Elevator Shared by Two

Dana Scully steps onto the elevator, finding it full of people. She squeezes barely within the doors. This may be her first day with her new partner, but she is qualified; she tells herself she has every right to be confident. With each floor more people get off, brushing past her. By the final leg of her journey to the basement, she is alone. She smooths out imaginary wrinkles on her jacket with one hand while holding her briefcase in the other, then tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, thinking about how badly she wants to cut it. The doors slide open, and the basement is darker than she imagined it, quieter.

*

It’s in the moments they are walking away from a conversation, sauntering toward an elevator, whispering and standing close, when the electricity crackles and pops. Theories fly and fall and land and they stand close, closer. The hair stands up on the backs of their arms. He doesn’t need to put his arm around her to show her the prints on his glasses, but as soon as the doors shut, he can. He does.

The next morning as the shower heats up, she watches her mirror fog and remembers his arm around her shoulder. She slides the curtain back and climbs into the falling water. It’s too hot and turns her skin pink, but she doesn’t move to make it cooler. The steam engulfs her with its warmth, wraps around her like an embrace, as she lathers every inch of her body with soap.

*

His comment about the politically correct elevator isn’t even funny, but she’s smirking anyway. At the fourth floor the elevator lurches, catching her off guard, and her hand slips from the cold chrome handrail. He is at her side instantly, helping her up.

This must be her punishment for a moment of flirting, she thinks, and when Mulder releases her arm to try the elevator buttons she admonishes herself for her unprofessional demeanor. Her heart is beating quickly, half from the moment she feared falling four floors and half from the moment she feared she could fall for the man beside her.

What she needs is to take charge of this situation, so she does, snatching the emergency phone from its box. Everything is under control, and as the car starts to move again it, back to normal. To emphasize her shift in attitude, she stands up straight and clasps her hands in front of her when she hangs up the phone. When he touches her arm she doesn’t react.

*

When an elevator dings and the doors open, whether one is inside or outside the car, a decision is made: continue the conversation as if a doorway hasn’t been crossed, or have one of those moments where everything seems different and the topic of conversation from the other side is forgotten, abandoned, lost.

“Spontaneous human combustion?” she asks, her raised eyebrows confirming her feelings on the matter.

“I have over a dozen case files of human bodies reduced to ash without any attendant burning or melting. Rapid oxidation without heat.”

“Let’s just forget for the moment that there’s no scientific theory to support it.”

“OK.”

With the ding, he is off to lean on the railing inside the elevator. Under other circumstances she would not let him get away with this, but in this new setting she lets it drop, standing near him, mere inches between her back and his arm. For a fleeting second he thinks about how he would like to reach out and cup her ass in his hand. He shakes his head and the thought is chased away.

*

There’s something about the inevitability of its arrival that makes confessions possible. Whenever they are in a rush to get out there and find truths the elevator makes them stop and wait, and in those seconds they can say things they couldn’t say if a tiny room wasn’t rising quickly, coming to take them away.

“I told your mother that you were going to be okay.”

“How did you know?”

The instigator and interrupter of their conversation arrives, announcing itself with a ding.

“I just knew.”

She gets on the elevator, and he has no choice but to follow. After all, he is the one that told her to come in the first place.

*

She sits at home watching television. When The Stupendous Yappi appears, mocking her, she throws the cordless phone at the screen and feels immediately foolish for doing so. After returning the phone to its charging station, she goes to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

As she brushes her teeth she ponders what might have happened if she hadn’t gotten on the service elevator by mistake.

*

The truth as well as she understands it. The best way that Scully can understand what happened is that we’re both mad, he thinks. They stand in silence for the rest of the ride.

His paranoid mind knows that most elevators have cameras in them, but when they’re alone in one it always feels like a private moment. The smell of her fills the small space, and he turns to face forward so it’s harder to stare at her mouth. Harder, but not impossible. When she licks her lips and tucks the bottom one in under her teeth he feels a strong urge not to be alone with his thoughts.

He’s only seconds away from asking her if she wants to grab dinner when they come to a stop and she’s gone, out of there like air rushing from a high pressure location to a low pressure one.

*

He calls out for her to hold the elevator, and she does, her hand darting out between the doors, which stop and retreat at her command.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he confesses as he steps inside. “Where have you been?”

“As an independent woman, I see no reason to answer that question,” she responds.

“So you’re saying this isn’t the time to ask you if you have plans this weekend,” he says, laughing.

“That depends on why you’re asking. If you’re hiding a pair of plane tickets to Utah somewhere on your person, Mulder, I swear…”

“Would you care to search, Agent Scully? You’re welcome to frisk me.”

She takes a step closer, a determined look on her face as her arms start to rise, but they reach their floor. A bald man coughs and enters, standing awkwardly near the front.

“Maybe next time,” she calls over her shoulder as she leaves. “See you Monday.”

*

He gets off before he says it, allowing himself a means of escape. Every few moments she has to push the door open button to keep him in front of her. How dare he not tell her in the first place; how dare he get off and stand in the hallway, leaving her alone.

“I want a second opinion,” she says, this time pressing the button to close the doors. As much as he did not want to face her before she doesn’t want to face him now. He had her ova this entire time and never told her.

He grabs the doors, one in each hand, as if there is something he can say, something more he needs to say, but her eyes tell him he can’t fix this, not now.

He lets go.

*

At first they are alone as he stares at the rubbing, but when the crowd of others gets on the noise they bring with them blocks out her words. They stand close, and the only thoughts he cares about are hers, but there are so many others. She sounds like she is standing at the other end of a tunnel. He catches something about his endless pursuit of the truth.

As they talk, he gets off, but she stands leaning against the door as if she might be headed somewhere else, as though she might step back in at any moment and press the button for another floor if his arguments don’t convince her to stay. In the end, she follows him down the hallway like she always does.

*

“C’mon, Scully, I’m feeling lucky,” he says, catching the door to the apartment building before it closes. They get on the elevator, and when doors close she moves in very close.

“Lucky, you say?” Her hands slip under his suit jacket, and he backs into the wall. She untucks his shirt just a little and starts to tug at his fly.

“Scully, what are you doing?”

She doesn’t actually intend to do anything, but she wants to see when he will stop her, how far she can get.

“Not here. Later,” he offers, smiling and tucking in his shirt. He presses the button for Weems’ floor three times in rapid succession.

“Later,” she confirms, and they walk off like nothing happened.

*

While he is gone, she visits his apartment often to keep it clean for his return and to be surrounded by his things.

The elevator to his apartment always does this little shudder as it crosses the third floor; it’s done it as long as she can remember. She’s taken to closing her eyes in anticipation of it,  feeling it go through her body, reminding her of the days when, if she knocked on his door, someone would answer.

One dark, windy evening she closes her eyes and the shudder never comes.

*

When he returns it is nothing like she imagined. The ride up to his apartment is the heaviest silence she can remember between them. She can tell by his face that he’s lost, this man who spent his life finding people, and she’s not sure how to help him find what he needs. She carries his bag, even though it makes no sense. In her other hand, which she has kept hidden in the pocket of her coat, she tears apart a tissue.

At the third floor she can see surprise flash in his eyes. She knows he is thinking of all of the things that have changed since he has been gone, trying to focus on the little ones. The big ones are too daunting.

*

Mulder is wearing a badge for the first time in years. He keeps staring at it, at how much older he looks in his picture. When he walks up to the elevator Scully is there, looking at her phone.

“Going down?” he says, wondering if it’s OK yet to make jokes. Is it too soon?

“I think I’ll take the stairs,” she says, turning her back to him and walking away.

Several paces later, the familiar ding sounds, but Mulder doesn’t move to get on. He’s staring at his shoes when she looks over her shoulder at him.

“I had you big time,” she calls out, half-jogging back to his side.


End file.
